There are millions of free and open source projects available, many of them better than any commercially available product. Below is a short listing of what we think is the best out there, broken down into ten categories.
Anti-virus and malware protection:Most PC users realize that they need some type of protection on their computer or may have an installed anti-virus program from their computer manufacturer. What most don't realize is that there are free programs that are just as good and in some cases better than the commercial products. Below are our recommendations
- Malware / Spyware protection: Malwarebytes
Backup solutions:
There are dozens of free and commercially available backup programs for computers. Unfortunately many of those backups are stored locally, meaning if your house were to catch fire, get robbed, or if you simply lost your backup discs all your data would be lost. This is why when dealing with important data we suggest users use online backup services.
- Online backup solution: Mozy ** Free 2GB of online backup for personal use
Browsers:
Although Microsoft Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on Windows computers. There are several excellent free alternatives that everyone should try. These free alternatives can often be faster, have more options, and in many cases be more secure than Internet Explorer.
- Internet Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome
Compression utility:
When downloading files on the Internet you'll eventually encounter a .zip, .rar, or other compressed file. Dealing with these files can be easy with our below free file compression utility.
- File compression utility: 7-zip
Disc ripper and creation utility:
Creating an audio or data CD/DVD, ripping the data from an audio CD, or creating a CD from a .ISO file can also be done freely using our below free recommendation.
- CD burner / ripper utility: CDBurnerXP
E-mail Clients:
E-mail is yet another service that can be done freely. Most users today use online e-mail solutions like the one listed below. However, for those still using an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook we strongly suggest one or both of the below suggestions.
- E-mail client: Mozilla Thunderbird
- Online e-mail: Gmail
FTP, SFTP, and SSH Utility:
Users who maintain their own web page or need to upload / download files to or from a server will have to use an FTP utility and/or a SSH client. There are many commercial programs capable of doing this but our below free recommendations beats them all.
- SSH client: Putty
Image editor, paint program, and picture organizer:
There are many great free solutions for editing, creating, and organizing your images on your computer. Many of the alternative programs capable of doing these types of tasks can be several hundred dollars, but all of the below programs are completely free.
Image editor:
- Paint program: Paint.net
- Picture organizer: Google Picasa
Multimedia:
There are dozens of different multimedia programs with different capabilities and limitations. Below are our top free multimedia programs for watching video files and recording audio.
Office Suite:
An Office suite such as Microsoft Office is often one of the most expensive programs that a user can install on their computer. Why install these expensive programs when there are free solutions that are just as good.
- Office suite: OpenOffice
- Notepad / Source code editor: Notepad++
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